Battle for the Pieces
Battle for the Pieces is the twentieth episode of Endurance 3: Hawaii. Overview It takes 12 Pyramid Pieces to win Endurance, and today the last few are up for grabs. Can the 2nd place team cause an upset and increase their odds of winning, or will the leaders dominate again and win the game by a landslide? Summary At last, the final day of Endurance: Hawaii has arrived! And when the Orange and Gray teams meet with JD at the huts on this sunny morning in the jungles of Kauai, he takes a moment to congratulate them on making it to the championship round. But they soon get down to business, reading the now-departed Yellow team's farewell letter. In the letter, Bryanah and Monroe express their sympathies to Demian for having to deal with Nicole as a partner, but they postscript the comment by telling him it was his own fault for choosing her in the first place! They then go on to express their admiration for Lindi and Chris, and wish them the best of luck at winning the championship. The good news for Orange is that the Yellow team couldn't leave their pieces to Gray, which would've given them an even more overwhelming lead. Instead, their two pieces will be up for grabs in the day's mission, Battle for the Pieces! In this mission, the two teams will compete in a boat race around the waters of Kauai. Four pyramid pieces wrapped in burlap will be placed on individual platforms at various points in the water, one of which will be Yellow's Luck piece. The others will be three decoys. The teams must successfully navigate the water to retrieve as many pieces as they can. Whichever team crosses the finish line first is guaranteed the other Yellow pyramid piece: Perseverance! At the end of the race, the teams will unwrap their collected pieces to see which team picked up the Luck piece along the way. Facing an 8-to-2 deficit, the Orange team must play this mission well if they are to get back in the game. But before they begin the race, JD gives the teams some time to reflect upon their Endurance experience and personalize their boats. As it turns out, the bickering between Nicole and Demian continues with the seemingly mundane task at hand - they can't even come to a mutual agreement on how to decorate their boat! Nicole wonders how they will manage to retrieve the two last pyramid pieces when the mission relies upon teamwork: one person needs to row the boat and the other needs to steer it! Before the mission begins, JD points out that both the Gray and Orange teams pay tribute to their fellow (and now eliminated) contestants by prominently displaying the team colors of those no longer in the game. But Demian concedes that Orange copied off Gray's boat! Everyone gets a welcome laugh as the pre-mission tension mounts. The race begins, and right off the bat the Orange team begins to argue with each other, showing absolutely no teamwork. Meanwhile, Chris and Lindi appear to be seasoned sailors, easily navigating their boat through the water. Gray easily retrieves the first and second burlap pieces. Orange tries to make a play for the third piece, but winds up merely going in circles. Meanwhile, Gray easily cruises along and picks up both pieces three and four! It is now a guarantee that Gray will add at least one more pyramid piece to their total! To make matters worse, while Orange is stuck in the murky water, Gray coasts past the finish line. They have now won the mission and both of Yellow's pieces, which gives them a 10-to-2 pyramid piece lead over Orange heading into the final showdown at the Temple! With such an overwhelming lead, Chris and Lindi are pretty confident they'll wind up champions. That said, they know that on Endurance anything can happen. Meanwhile, Nicole and Demian come to grips with the fact that they're enormous underdogs and will most likely end the evening as runner-ups. But, as with every edition of Endurance, it will be fate that has the final say. Standings Game Play In Float Your Boat, the game is in the form of a boat race. Both teams sail across the lake, hoping to get pieces. However, only one will be the real one, while the others will be decoys. The first team to cross the finish line will also get the Perseverance piece as a reward. Production Notes Quotes *'J.D.:' (with Orange and Gray on the hut's steps) "I think it's quite a feat— this has been, hands down, the toughest Endurance ever. Previously, players had to survive cold nights, sweltering hot days, but you guys had to endure a whole lot more— you had to compete in games amidst torrential downpours, and to top it off, the bugs, never quite stopped trying to take a bite out of you; it's been a grueling emotional ride, but the four of you have made it." *'J.D.:' (hinting at the Final Mission) "As you can see, there are two boats out there— this is going to be kind of a boat race around the island, on an island, on an island; we're going to give you some time to decorate your boat, maybe put a flag on it, paint it, and then later today will be your final mission for these two pieces right here." *'Nicole:' "Let's try not to fight today, okay, Demian? This is our last day, so let's not even talk about something that we know that angers us, let's not talk about it, okay? Unless you want to fight, that's up to you." *'Nicole:' "We decided to decorate our boat with the four teams we had an alliance with in the beginning, and the four teams I still wish were here with us right now, and then we're having our big Orange flag on top, representing us, that we're still here." *'Chris:' "Antonio was one of the first kids to leave; at first, I thought it was an act, how nice he was trying to be to everyone, but I learned that it was just his personality, he's really that nice, and you know, it's hard for me to understand, you know, I was like, 'How can someone be so nice?'. And the same with Bjorn— he's one of the most nicest, sincere, honest kids I've ever met, and I didn't get a chance to know him that good, and I regret that." *'Lindi:' "It kinda brings back a lot of memories, whenever you're painting on different colors, and you realize, 'Oh, I miss them'." *'Demian:' "My favorite team would definitely have to be a standoff between the Gray and Yellow teams— the Gray team's really strong, they work well and they clicked right from the start, and the Yellow team they just became so powerful, you know? Nobody expected them to come this far; nobody expected Monroe to come this far— when we went into the elimination game, Monroe was definitely one of the boys who I thought was gonna drop before I did." *'Chris:' "You still wish it was Yellow?" **'Nicole:' "I don't— after what Yellow said about us, heck no." **'Demian:' "'Cause you were being so mean to them!" *'Nicole:' "I think that the other contestants think that I'm mean and that they think that I lied, and that I've manipulated, but... that's what I had to do to stay here, because if you look at it, we're not one of the strong teams; Orange won three missions, and we didn't win any pyramid pieces— we have the one we started out with, and the one Blue gave us, and I just wasn't gonna give up easily, because people thought I was mean." *'Nicole:' "So that's how that goes: Green left, Brown left, Yellow left, Blue left, Red left and Purple left— our friends (gestures to the last three colors)... our not friends (gestures to the first three colors)." *'Demian:' "Let's make flames." **'Nicole:' "No, 'cause that's too easy to mess up." **'Demian:' "Mess up?" **'Nicole:' "Yeah; look at these paintbrushes, they're huge and it'll be hard!" *'Nicole:' "I'm like, okay, I had this whole idea for our boat, I'm not gonna be like, 'No, no flames!'; if he wants to do his thing, let's give him an opportunity." *'Nicole:' "Demian! Those do not look like flames at all!" **'Demian:' "Chris, what do these look like?" **'Chris:' "Mountains? What is it supposed to be?" **'Nicole:' "He wanted to do flames." *'Nicole:' "I went to go get off the boat, and all of a sudden, I look, and I have one leg on the boat, and one leg on shore." *'Demian:' "I just stood there looking at her, and the boat kept on floating away from the shore! Then all of a sudden, she just falls backwards, and it's really funny." *'Nicole:' "You're laughing!" **'Demian:' "It's funny; you're laughing too!" *'Nicole:' "Demian was laughing when I fell in, but I was laughing too, 'cause I felt stupid; he was probably laughing, because he was like, 'Haha see that evil person had to get wet'!" *'Demian: '(about the design of Gray's raft) "Um, they kinda copied us." *'J.D.:' (about the design of Orange's raft) "So, she'll [Nicole] be standing on all of the names of the people that left before you guys, huh? King of the jungle!" *'Nicole:' "Stop pushing, Demian— when you get in a certain direction, Demian, you have to stop pushing!" *'J.D.:' "Looks like Gray team's got piece number two!" **'Demian:' "Argh!" **'Nicole:' "They already had it; there was no point in trying!" *'Lindi:' "Get around them... somehow!" *'Nicole:' "Demian, make sure you're on opposite sides of me at all times!" *'Nicole:' "What are you doing?!" **'Demian:' "I'm trying to push us! Just—" **'Nicole:' "Switch me!" *'J.D.:' (after Gray clean sweeps the Final Mission) "Amazing job; you guys made it look so easy— you're out in the front, just coasting around, and he's pushing off like he's lived on the islands his whole life." *'Demian:' "Nicole starts getting heated really easily, so I guess, she started yelling at me— she always yells at me, but you know, when she starts yelling, I just don't listen..." *'Nicole:' "I'm like, 'Demian, just listen to me and go to the back!', and he wasn't listening, and then finally, I was getting so mad that I was about to push him off and just take it by myself!" *'Demian:' "When Nicole gets into a mission, she has to win the mission, or she's gonna be upset; she can't go in there, try her hardest, and come out of the mission and be like, 'Well, I tried my hardest'. She comes out of the mission saying, 'Blame it on somebody, whoever it is, it doesn't matter who it is, just blame it on somebody!'" *'Lindi:' (chatting with Nicole about Orange's embarrassing loss) "You need to talk to him about it." **Nicole: "There's no point in talking about it, because it's over with now; we go to Temple with our two pieces, and we're basically guarantee to take it home now." *'Chris:' "Now that we've won the final competition it just makes me feel great you know I'm so thrilled so happy that I made it this far in this game and so many other people wanted to be where I am right now so I'm really thankful and I have ten pieces and they only have two, which makes me feel a lot better." *'Demian:' "Have you ever rowed a boat before?" **'Nicole:' "A boat?" **'Demian:' "Or whatever we were rowing?" **'Nicole:' "Yeah, a canoe... a ton of times. Have you?" **'Demian:' "Nope." **'Nicole:' "You should've told me you never rowed on one." **'Demian:' "There's nothing to row in Vegas." **'Nicole:' "Oh, well, we still have a chance, but even though we might lose, I'm fine with that too, are you?" **'Demian:' "Yeah, I'm fine with it... but I did wanna win, that's why I wanted Yellow to come back, because they probably would've gone in circles too." *'Chris:' (when Lindi knocks on a bunk) "Knock on wood!" Trivia *Only finale where only one team wins more than one piece still in play. *First time in Endurance History were the final two commemorate their time on Endurance, as well as honor all the teams who have already been eliminated. *Last time a Gray team wins a mission. Category:Episodes Category:Final Missions Category:Season 3 episodes